Call for Papers: Science fiction and the teaching of politics

There is a revival of science fiction in France since the end of the 20th century, in the wake of the New French Science fiction, carried particularly by Alain Damasio and the authors of the Zanzibar collective. This revival seems to have two concomitant effects. On the one hand, a return of politics, within published texts but also through an interventionist presence beyond the strictly literary field (“zones à défendre” and militant circles, music, performing arts...). On the other hand - but this is hardly observable beyond the local level - a certain craze for the teaching of Damasio's works and their inclusion in the curriculum of French and literature classes, from secondary education to university.

From this double initial observation, three poles emerge, whose articulatory possibilities define the stakes of this issue in its broad outlines: politics (understood after Rancière (2005) as governmentality at all levels of collective organization, even as "débordement"), science fiction, and teaching. It will be considered worthwhile to formulate a research question according to one or the other of the following approaches, to which we add some general questions as synthetic examples. These questions are obviously not intended to cover the whole of the problem.

As we shall see, the present call partly overlaps with the questions that the journal ResFuturae recently asked, although for a wider set of disciplines and without the political concern appearing. This convergence is gratifying, and we hope that it will lead to exciting dialogues.

 

Approach 1: What place for politics in the teaching of (science-fictional) literature?

School literary reading, contrary to other disciplines such as history or philosophy, does not consider in its traditions, nor in its official programs, nor in its declared practices, any obvious obligation of political education. Whereas, if we look at the didactic stakes of the discipline of French (or any other language) from the angle of a theory of joint action, as represented in particular by G. Sensevy (2011), we realize that teachable facts are indissociable from the values that underlie them, that "evaluation and description are intertwined" (Putnam, quoted by Sensevy, 707) and that any didactic engineering must integrate an ethical dimension. This dimension, in fact, always reveals itself, whether it is questioned or not. Its effective interrogation implies actively instituting the political perspectives thus revealed, and nourishing, through an informed dialogue between students and teachers, the questions that are bound to emerge.

Incidentally, and in view of the fundamental hybridity of the SF genre, one cannot but advise interested researchers to push the joint didactic action beyond the limits of their own discipline(s) and to eventually turn to other didactics than those of French or literature, in particular, in the case of SF, directed towards the so-called hard sciences, for example around the works of Samy Joshua, Roland Lehoucq or Jean-Pierre Astolfi.

• What place for ideology? Should an openness to the political ideas expressed in the literary works make room for other proposals of governance that would be dependent on divergent ideologies?
• In what form (common, individual, small groups) should such questioning emerge in the classroom?
• Should the fictional and scientific sides of SF be considered separately in teaching, and should it engage in inter- or trans-disciplinarity?

 

Approach 2: At its fictional production level, is the SF genre inseparable from a reflection or a political commitment?

Arguably, the SF genre is, like Romanticism (Raynaud & Rials, 2003), an exploratory genre: it is by means of narrative conjecture, as Darko Suvin already indicated (Suvin, 1977), that SF has the possibility of initiating a transformation of our view of the world. The exploratory dimension of the SF consists in the reflection that it offers on the present, by the means of a chimerical future. In fact, it proves to be opportune to the development of political reflection. In other words, it offers "des terrains et des procédés pour s’exprimer sur des mutations plus ou moins profondes [de la société]" (Rumpala 2010, §5). The perspective thus opened would allow, for example, to put in parallel the posture of its authors (Damasio, but also Pierre Bordage, Sabrina Calvo, Jean-Marc Ligny, Sylvie Denis...) with that of the great committed romantics (Hugo, Lamartine, Nodier, Gautier...), or to observe the evolution of the political discourse inscribed in the history of the genre, from Cyrano to Rosny aîné (Chaperon, 2002).

• Is there a specific ideological orientation to the SF genre (is SF left-wing)?
• How does political reflection show through in the texts (motifs, intertextual references, generic hybridity...)?
• What are the specific contributions of the SF genre to political reflection (narrative conjecture, cognitive distancing effect, "sense of wonder")?
• To what extent does SF and/or teaching it make room for a return of auctoriality, i.e. of the personal commitment or posture of authors in the City?

 

Approach 3: Does politically aware teaching have to rethink its own methods, in order to correspond to those it questions?

Because the SF genre is an exploratory genre, teaching it implies a "transmission poïétique" (Sensevy 2011: 730 (§76)), a savoir-penser that is necessarily accompanied by literary invention, and a dialectic of learning in which teacher and student are dynamic poles. Another way of putting it: SF can be seen as a mise en abyme of the professorial discourse and of the pedagogical interaction. The mobility of the teacher's role, his questioning and endangerment of his (obsolete) position as dogmatic bearer of knowledge, is remarkably illustrated in Damasio’s Les Furtifs by the treatment of the teaching activity, seen through the fascist lens of a society of control. He draws a teaching activity, "proferrance", consisting of refusing to comply with the official educational programs by operating in a dissident, nomadic manner, setting up their class in the public square, unfolding and refolding their material as quickly as possible. These classes are of course ideologically deviant, highly dangerous to give or to take, and threatened by police intervention.

This "proferrance" should be seen as an interesting trail for this issue, in particular by questioning the fictional character of the professor and his action within society - a character which presents historically many examples of heroic treatment in the Anglo-Saxon field (Saving Private Ryan, The Secret History, the Harry Potter saga, including Indiana Jones or Professor Xavier), but seems to suffer from an inferiority complex in the French literary field. This field has roots in the figure of the XVIIth century pédant (Monsieur Jourdain's masters in Le Bourgeois gentillhomme or La Fontaine's L'enfant et le maître d'école). But since then, from Guilloux's Sang noir to Ionesco's La leçon, to Houellebecq's François in Soumission or Pierre Hoffman's character in L'heure de la sortie (film by S. Marnier, 2018), do we really elude these stereotypes?

The figure of the professor can be added, or opposed to, that of the mad scientist. By the isolation that his madness imposes on him, in an epistemologically modern paradigm that thrives on the discovery and sharing of the truth, the mad scientist embodies the difficulty of any process of transmission. Mad science in (science) fiction is a very obvious theme, and its representations exceed the purpose of our argument, but appeals to us because it problematizes the human relation to knowledge, to "l’aventure sublime ou folle du savoir" (Ponnau, 1994: III). As a negative pole, it short-circuits the Promethean process, understood as an ideal of knowledge sharing. In this perspective, it resembles a didactic scarecrow, through which the transposition didactique (Chevallard 1991, Perrenoud 1998, Astofi & Develay 2002, among others) - is made impossible, or at least drastically complicated. It is Balzac’s Frenhofer, in his workshop, able at first to show off brilliantly to his disciples, then fatally isolated in the impenetrability of his masterpiece.

• In what way does the fictional ground allow an epistemological rethinking of our relation to science?
• What place should be given to the historical and historiographical recontextualization of political issues concerning SF teaching (for example: the nuclear arms race of the 1960s - Stefan Wul, René Barjavel, Robert Merle)?
• How can we articulate professorial posture and fictional representation of the teacher?

At a time when science fiction is increasingly finding its way into academic criticism and educational institutions, it is necessary to question the stakes associated with the reception and transmission of these works - their discourses, their knowledge, their values, their ethics, as well as the role they are called upon to play in the transmission of these discourses, knowledge, etc. If, as we believe, in the wake of Dewey, Rancière or Lahire, the first stake of transmission is the emancipation of the pupil, can the critical power of SF nourish such a requirement?

We encourage contributions based on real-life didactic experience, local testimonies, etc. in the field of SF teaching. We are also interested in reviews of books related to the issues raised here.

 

Proposals in the form of an abstract (one paragraph) to be sent to Colin Pahlisch (colin.pahlisch@unil.ch), Gaspard Turin (gaspard.turin@unil.ch), and the journal Relief (revuerelief@gmail.com) by December 20, 2022. Final papers are due on May 20, 2023.

 

Bibliography
Angenot, Marc (2013), Les dehors de la littérature, Paris, Champion.
Astolfi, Jean-Pierre & Develay, Michel (2002), La didactique des sciences, Paris, PUF.
Atallah, Marc (2016), L'art de la science-fiction, Chambéry et Yverdon-les-Bains, ActuSF et Maison d'Ailleurs.
Besson, Anne (2021), Les pouvoirs de l’enchantement. Usages politiques de la fantasy et de la science-fiction, Paris, Éditions Vendémiaire.
Blanquet, Estelle, Picholle, Éric (dir.) (2011), Science et fictions à l’école, un outils transdisciplinaire pour l’investigation, Paris, Éditions du Somnium.
Bréan, Simon (2012), La science-fiction en France, Théorie et histoire d’une littérature, Paris, Sorbonne Université Presses. 
Chaperon, Danielle (2002), « La préhistoire expérimentale de J.-H. Rosny aîné » in V. Dufief-Sanchez (éd.), Les écrivains face au savoir, Dijon, Éditions universitaires de Dijon.
Chevallard, Yves (1991 [1985]), La transposition didactique. Du savoir savant au savoir enseigné, Grenoble, La Pensée Sauvage.
Dewey, John (1916), Democracy and education, New York, The Free Press.
Engélibert, Jean-Paul (2019), Fabuler la fin du monde. La puissance critique des fictions d’apocalypse, Paris, La Découverte.
Jameson, Fredric (2012), L'inconscient politique : Le récit comme acte socialement symbolique, Paris, Questions Théoriques.
Jameson, Fredric (2007-2008), Archéologies du futur I et II, Paris, Max Milo.
Lahire, Bernard (2004), « Individu et mélange des genres », Réseaux n° 126, 89-111, online.
Langlet, Irène (2006), La science-fiction, lecture et poétique d’un genre littéraire, Paris, Armand Colin. 
Lehoucq, Roland (2007), SF : la science mène l’enquête, Paris, Le Pommier.
Martin, Jean-Clet (2017), Logique de la science-fiction, Paris, Les Impressions nouvelles.
Pahlisch, Colin (2021), « Au miroir des astres. L’expérience littéraire du ciel dans le space-opera », Études de lettres n° 316, online.
Picholle, Éric (2013), « La suspension d’incrédulité, stratégie cognitive », Res Futurae n°2 – La science-fiction, online.
Perrenoud, Philippe (1998) ; « La transposition didactique à partir de pratiques : des savoirs aux compétences », Revue des sciences de l'éducation, Vol. XXIV, n° 3, p. 487-514, online.
Ponnau, Gwenhaël (1994), Les savants fous, Paris, Presses de la Cité « Omnibus ».
Rancière, Jacques (2005), La haine de la démocratie, Paris, La Fabrique.
Raynaud, Philippe & Rials, Stéphane (2003), Dictionnaire de philosophie politique, Paris, PUF.
Rumpala, Yannick (2010), « Ce que la science-fiction pourrait apporter à la pensée politique », Raisons politiques, n°40, p. 97-113.
Rumpala, Yannick (2018), Hors des décombres du monde. Écologie, science-fiction et éthique du futur, Paris, Champ-Vallon.
Sensévy, Gérard (2011), Le sens du savoir. Éléments pour une théorie de l’action conjointe en didactique, Bruxelles, De Boeck supérieur.
Suvin, Darko (1977), Pour une poétique de la science-fiction, Presses de l’Université du Québec.
Turcev, « Edition : mutations dans la SF », livreshebdo.fr, 15 avril 2019.